Unofficial Football World Champions... And Cricket!

If not, you are probably familiar with the concept from sports like boxing. Essentially, as the website says:

This is how it works: the Unofficial Football World Championships (UFWC) pitches real international teams into a continuous series of boxing-style title matches. Winners of UFWC title matches become title-holders, and move up the rankings table.

UFWC lineage goes right back to the very first international football match in 1872, between Scotland and England in Glasgow. As Scotland and England were the only international teams in existence, the winner of this initial match could safely claim to be the best side in the world – the Unofficial Football World Champions, if you will. Unfortunately, neither side managed to win the match – the score was a rather disappointing 0-0. So swiftly fast-forward to the second international football match, again between England and Scotland, and played in London on 8 March 1873. This time there were a full six goals – England won 4-2, and became the very first Unofficial Football World Champions. But they didn’t hold the title for long. In 1874 they were beaten 2-1 by Scotland, meaning the UFWC title passed to the Scots.

The UFWC title bounced backward and forward between England and Scotland, and then Ireland and Wales got involved. The British home nations dominated the UFWC during international football’s formative years, until the instigation of international tours and tournaments meant sides from all around the globe began to play each other. Following the UFWC lineage through almost 800 friendly and competitive matches, we can trace how the title was passed between over 40 different nations during more than 130 years of international football. It has been held by most major European and South American teams, plus comparative footballing minnows like Australia, Israel, Ecuador, and the tiny Dutch Antilles. The title has been contested at World Cup finals and in seemingly meaningless friendlies. It has been won by the most celebrated players of all time, and by previously unknown and unsung heroes.

Talking about this down the pub the other night, my mate wondered who would be the Test cricket's equivalent, if you worked from the first test series back in 1877 between Australia and England up to today.

So just for a laugh, old muggins here as sat down and worked it all out, and I can announce the current Unofficial Cricket World Champions (or the Stoggler Cup as I'm tentatively going to call it ).

At the moment, based on Test SERIES (rather than individual test matches), the current title holders are India. They have been title holders since beating Australia in the 2008-09 series.

Since 1877, Australia and England have been holders for the most number of times (not surprisingly), with West Indies in third. The full breakdown of number of times countries have been title holders are:

Yes, that is correct about Zimbabwe. They gained the title by beating India in 1998-9 and then retaining the title against Pakistan. They subsequently lost to the Aussies.

And if you're interested, I also worked out who would be "champions" if you took individual test matches rather than series. Again it's India. With this however, the title changes hands much more frequently, even sometimes with a poor side losing the last match of a series in what is otherwise a dead rubber.

Let's just say it was a quiet day at work... Working out the individual matches' "champion" was the hardest, but that was helped by South Africa holding the title when they were thrown out of international cricket, so the title didn't change hands for 20 years!

^^ Thanks to this I think it's fair to say that the system needs to be changed a bit for it to be a reasonable representation of the World Champion. How about having the first team which wins 2 series in a row against the World Champion becomes the new Champion? Look at the current Test champions, India - are you telling me that they need to lose only one series to relinquish their title as World Champion? And how on earth can England be ODI champions (maybe Twenty20 International Champions, but not ODI).

^^ it's fair to say that the system needs to be changed a bit for it to be a reasonable representation of the World Champion. How about having the first team which wins 2 series in a row against the World Champion becomes the new Champion? Look at the current Test champions, India - are you telling me that they need to lose only one series to relinquish their title as World Champion? And how on earth can England be ODI champions (maybe Twenty20 International Champions, but not ODI).

Maybe you would like to re-read my opening post, especially the first five words - it's all a bit of fun. No more than that. Or perhaps in my OP you can highlight the point where I claim the method shows a reasonable representation of the World Champion? I did not claim that, and I still do not claim that.

Besides, where in the boxing world does a challenger have to beat a champion twice to claim a title? Or the Ashes for that matter? The Ashes would hardly ever change hands if England had to beat Australia twice on the trot! But that's all beside the point, as I stated in the first line, IT'S ALL A BIT OF FUN!!!!